March 18th, 2007 by Kateastrophe

I’m here, I’m here. Shhhh. Calm down, I didn’t leave forever.

My Mom and sister Meagan came to town on Thursday so I’ve been away from the computer and busy with them . . . but I’ll post pictures and stuff very soon.

And I’ve reset the Kateastrophe ticker, much to my dismay. I’ll explain that too. It’s gooooood.

Bear with me another day or so. I promise I’ll be back!

March 9th, 2007 by Kateastrophe

For those of you who don’t know me, I have ridiculously.long.hair. I was blessed with the thick hair gene and blessed/cursed (depending on how you view it) with STICK STRAIGHT hair too. So, if I have a decent haircut with some minimal shaping, I can pull off getting out of the shower, putting some smoothing products in the mane, running a brush through it and going. I don’t usually do this, as “mi esposa” prefers it when I “DO” my hair (which includes a blow dryer and curling iron) but today the lazy in me took over.

So I did just what I described above and off I went to work.

I just took a little trip to the ladies room and whilst washing my hands I glanced in the mirror.

“HOLY CRAP!” Said my inner monologue “I look like one of those little white trash elementary school boys who have never met a comb and use soap to wash their hair!”

The gently mussed look? So not for me.

Messy bun . . . meet Kate’s bad hair day.

March 7th, 2007 by Kateastrophe

Never mention the subject of babies in a blog post unless you are:
a) pregnant already or
b) planning to make yourself that way very soon.

Sorry for the fire drill folks. I am not, nor am I planning on being pregnant any time in the forseeable future. Here is a list of people you can talk to if that’s what you’re looking for:

Those to convince to become pregnant:
My sister and her husband (hehehe she’s going to kill me)
Brother-in-law and his wife (they are going to kill me too!)

Those already “with child”
Jewels
My good friend Sara
Hannah
Lindsey(who I don’t know personally, but I do know she’s having a baby soon.)
This random girl

. . . and pretty much EVERY woman I go to church with.

Just not ME. My uterus is closed for business until much further notice.

February 19th, 2007 by Kateastrophe

Hahaha. Ok I apologize to anyone offended by my little play on words . . . but seriously, it’s fitting.

Today I worked my tuckus off. I had hoped to clean the whole darn house today, however that didn’t get done. Something got in the way. A FAN. A FREAKING CEILING FAN.

I wanted to be all handy and install it myself, so while Matt was at the sand dunes, I did it. Sort of. It’s all installed . . . it JUST DOESN’T WORK. It took me four hours and it doesn’t freaking work. The light works . . . but the FAN doesn’t work. It took me forever to figure out which breaker shut the power to my bedroom off. This was after I shocked myself three times thinking “I won’t get shocked.” Riiiight. I finally just turned off ALL the power in the house. Then I set to work taking down the old fan and starting up the new one. By the time I turned the power back on I had put it together and taken it apart like four times. Nothing was working correctly, nothing was going on the right way, nothing fit, nothing went flush. NOTHING WAS WORKING THE WAY IT WAS SUPPOSED TO. Then, after hours and hours of frustration, I thought I had it right. I went downstairs, turned all the power back on, went upstairs . . . turned on the light and then . . . no fan.

After that, I went downstairs, got a Diet Coke and drank my sorrows away for about an hour.

Then, I cleaned like a freaker . . . but just the upstairs, the bathroom and the kitchen. I’m currently sitting in the living room surrounded by junk mail, clean laundry and just a wee bit of garbage. Ok, a lot of garbage. Ok not really garbage. Napkins. Left over from my pigging out on pasta.

On the upside, I got a new cleaning toy! A Dirt Devil Broom Vac. It makes sweeping the floor so easy! As you sweep it sucks up all the dirt! I wanted a pink one but Target only had red, and I was desperate to have it (impatient much?!?)so I bought what they had. I just want to sweep the floor all the time! (Much different then last weeks attitude of ‘I hate to sweep’)

So now MOST of my house is clean and I’m happy to be sitting watching my Sunday night TV shows, wrapped in a blanket waiting for my husband to return from his weekend at the dunes. He will be stinky but it will be good to see him!

February 9th, 2007 by Kateastrophe

If you could read my mind, first of all you’d be very scared. Second of all, yesterday you would have been listening to the following conversation I was having with myself on the plane to Orlando.

“Is my butt really that big or did the seats on the exit rows of all airplanes shrink all of a sudden? Seriously, this isn’t going to be a comfortable flight at ALL. Maybe I should offer to switch seats with someone not in an exit row and see if I fit better . . . ok that’s just stupid all the stupid seats are the same stupid size. My butt just IS that bi . . .ow my leg hurts, I wish I would have gotten some pizza before I boarded because I really hate paying five dollars for two pieces of cheese and a grape but I guess it doesn’t matter because this IS a business trip hehehe. . . seriously what is with my itchy leg? SKIN FLAKES? I should have put on lotion this morning after I shaved, that was sure dumb of m . . .ok now the other leg is itchin again and it really feels like my pants are velcroed to my le. . . OH MY GOSH I ONLY SHAVED ONE OF MY LEGS THIS MORNING.”

February 9th, 2007 by Kateastrophe

So last week, during the show “24,” Maricopa County (otherwise known as Phoenix) issued an Amber Alert. Someone had kidnapped a young hispanic child and no one could find his mother either. They did it twice during the hour that the show was on, and it was your typical “beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep ‘this is an amber alert’ then all the details (including the woman struggling to pronounce the names, stumbling over words, etc.) beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep”

What I should have been thinking:
“Oh no, that poor child, I should to out and start looking for him. I’m so glad we have the technology to make people aware when something like this happens, I bet they find him right away because of it. I don’t mind the words flashing across the screen or the beeping or any of it. We have an amazing world with an amazing alert system. Thank goodness.”

What I was actually thinking:

“SERIOUSLY?? During 24? I can’t hear a WORD Jack Bauer is saying and I what he’s saying is important because EVERY SECOND of 24 is important. This is really bothering me and that BEEPING NOISE! Make it stop! She can’t even pronounce the Spanish name. LIKE IT’S WRITTEN LADY, LIKE IT’S WRITTEN. Where did you learn to read? OH MY GOSH STOP TALKING. Oh his MOTHER is missing too?? And you can’t pronounce HER name? ACK! Now Jack is torturing someone and I don’t know why because of the BEEEEEEPIIINNNGGGG!!! I get it I get it, it’s an Amber Alert you already SAID THAT. stopitstopitstopit”

I am going to hell.

January 31st, 2007 by Kateastrophe

If you could read my mind, first of all you’d be very scared.

Second of all, yesterday you would have been listening to the following conversation I was having with myself on the plane to Orlando.

“Is my butt really that big or did the seats on the exit rows of all airplanes shrink all of a sudden? Seriously, this isn’t going to be a comfortable flight at ALL. Maybe I should offer to switch seats with someone not in an exit row and see if I fit better . . . ok that’s just stupid all the stupid seats are the same stupid size. My butt just IS that bi . . .ow my leg hurts, I wish I would have gotten some pizza before I boarded because I really hate paying five dollars for two pieces of cheese and a grape but I guess it doesn’t matter because this IS a business trip hehehe. . . seriously what is with my itchy leg? SKIN FLAKES? I should have put on lotion this morning after I shaved, that was sure dumb of m . . .ok now the other leg is itchin again and it really feels like my pants are velcroed to my le. . . OH MY GOSH I ONLY SHAVED ONE OF MY LEGS THIS MORNING.”

January 25th, 2007 by Kateastrophe

I should live by that quote.

So, I’ve been trying my darndest to keep my house cleaner. It’s not really a New Year’s Resolution . . .more like a “I’m desperately hoping to sell my house soon and it’s probably going to be listed for like eight months so I’d better get into the habit of keeping it squeaky clean now so I don’t run around like a crazy person trying to make it look spic and span when someone wants to come over and look at it.”

Holy run-on sentence Batman!

ANYWAY, I’m trying. Harder than I’ve ever tried. Those of you who know me well know that I’m just not the cleanest person. I’m not grossly dirty by any means, I’m just cluttered and, well, lazy. So I like to find shortcuts so that I can spend the least amount of time with optimal results. Thus my use of the drop-in toilet cleaner tablets. I want to write an ode to them. They are FABULOUS. Always have been. I found a similar but different product that I love even more, the Kaboom! Toilet Cleaner thing (that’s totally it’s official name — NOT.) You hook the sucker up to the water tubes so that every bit of water that flows into the toilet has gone through the cleaning solution. BRILLIANT I tell you! BRILLIANT!

But I digress. This is about the tablets. See, we have one toilet downstairs that the previous owners of the house (what’s the mean opposite of an ‘ode?’ I want to write one to them because they SUCK. Seriously. We hate them.) decided not to fix when it broke. Turns out they duct taped it’s internal organs together in order to facilitate not having to spend $79 on a new toilet. So this is why the toiled got a tablet, rather than a Kaboom! cleaner. I couldn’t get the duct tape off to “re-wire” the tubes through the Kaboom! cleaner. Anyway, so in goes the blue tablet. I walked away proud that, at least for the next month, the inside of the toilet would remain mostly clean and I could get away with wiping off the outside and not having to super scrub the bowl.

Cut to last night, 24 hours after said “tablet” was added to the toilet.

I was in the bathroom, doing my business, and I looked down towards the floor, like you do, right? I see a fine blue mist all over the white baseboards. I investigate further. HUGE BLUE PUDDLE OF WATER BEHIND THE TOILET. Floorboards? Warped. New baseboards? Permanently blue with the “fine spray” that had somehow ejected itself from the toilet. IT WAS EVERYWHERE.

I called Matt in and we were both just staring at the toilet, baffled. There wasn’t a crack . . . there wasn’t a hole . . . WHERE WAS IT COMING FROM?!?!?

It took Matt about 25 minutes to find the culprit. GULP. Me. Well, sort of. Me and my shortcut stupid BLUE TABLET. It had eaten away at the already corroded (unknown to us) washer at the bottom of the tank, and VOILA! Fine spray and dripping blue water and a ruined floor to boot.

Blue tablet or not, my laziness or not, I blame the previous owners. I want to go burn a note into their front lawn. “FIX THE TOILET WHEN IT’S BROKEN. When it starts to go, duct tape is NOT THE ANSWER PEOPLE”

I also want to watch their house closely. If they ever try to sell, I’m going to ward off potential buyers with a stick. Or a broken toilet thrown at them.